Youth Olympic Games in Singapore
This August, the world’s first-ever Youth Olympic Games (YOG) will be held in Singapore. Moreover, they will be held at the university campus where I live and work.
First, inquiring minds want to know, what do they mean by Youth Olympics? When regular Olympic women gymnasts are routinely 14 years old, will Singapore be hosting even tinier, younger proto-adults? I don’t know what the age cut-off is.
Second, what does this mean for those of us who live and work here? Hell on earth, that’s what it means.
At first we thought it was a nice reason to spruce up the place; buildings are getting re-faced and painted, tired plantings are being pruned and reinvigorated. The whole university is getting a face lift, and we can enjoy the results.
But the construction, painting, water-blasting and renovations have been going on for more than nine months now. Nine months during which the university athletic fields have been off-limits, while the track and soccer field were scraped down to dust, a new irrigation system was inserted, and then the sod and track were replaced. Nine months of dust, jackhammers, noise, noise, noise and general inconvenience. And now we’re nearing the end of it, thank god, and things look very nice.
But aside from looking nicer, are our facilities actually any better? Did they add any new badminton courts? (We had four for a student population of 28,000 – this in badminton-addicted Asia.) No. Any new places for kids to play? Well, there’s a shallow warm-up pool next to the high diving board, so there’s at least a place for children to paddle, and that’s new. But to counterract this, any place that used to be good for skateboarding or rollerblading has now been partitioned with fences and made inaccessible. So toddlers score, at the expense of older children.
And in some cases things are worse; I have in mind the fencing around the tennis courts. The old diamond-shaped fencing, sheathed in forest-green plastic, was ripped down and replaced with higher rectangular steel fencing. Not only does the sun glare off the new fence in ways that dazzle players; balls get stuck in it.
I hope the athletes enjoy their two weeks at NTU; it’s been pretty hard on those of us in residence. YOGA – Youth Olympic Games Aggravation.